Day 11 - Ludington

DSCN0603
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Here is a shot of our campsite in Ludington, which as many of you will be pleased to hear, was taken by Clair after we found each other.

Our day started off with us separating, as I had to wait for the post office to open. After that we met back up for lunch as was getting to be normal. The problem happened when on a long flat stretch of alternating lefts and rights, I got ahead of Clair. Then I got slightly lost.

I though that I was supposed to take the next major left, and that was true. The problem was that there was a merging angled road in there between me and the next left. I turned up the merging road, keeping in mind the theory that : "As long as the lake is to my right, I am okay." Unfortunately because of the angles involved, that didn't work out.

Sometime in here I was passed by an old couple in a car who asked me to stop. They let me know that Clair had a flat, and that she wanted me to keep going on ahead. This was pretty standard, and since she had all the gear, I just kept pedaling.

I had a wonderful ride as I was lost. I got to circle the same peach orchard on all 4 sides. The smell of peaches in the warm sun was wafting off the orchard in the light summer breeze, making this one of the most pleasant spots on the trip.

After finally getting into town by following the highway signs and directions, I realized that I did not know where to meet Clair. So I found a sunny beach spot and started calling people. I called Todd asking him to check the map online to see what her most likely route was. We figured that she would have to ride past me into town, and eventually she did. Thank goodness we had our walkie talkies, cause they saved us.

After that we got her some new tire tubes, and then rode on out to our campsite. Not the best, particularly since there was some confusion about where the sites ended and the next began, but it was a pleasant night all told.

Day 10 - Beulah

DSCN0599
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

A quiet morning getting out of town, but the day grew increasingly hot and hilly as we went.
The day started interesting. There was a bike path along our route, and it had an educational scale solar system along it. Unfortunately I only remember seeing Pluto and Saturn, so I can't tell you much about it.
After the bike paths, and after our time into Traverse City, the ride became very hilly. I remember a ride out of town that had us going up hill along a pretty busy road, with major truck traffic mere feet from our bicycles.
As the trek grew hillier and longer, I got ahead of Clair by a good bit. Thankfully we had a pre-arranged meeting point set up, and she caught up with me after only a 10-15 minute break near a gas station.
When we were there we discussed the idea of going out of our way to see the Sleeping Bear Dunes. It was decided that since they were out of the way, and since we were staying at Warren Dunes later on the trip, that we would pass them up for an earlier day.
After that we rode on in to Beulah, a town were extended family of mine owns a home on a small lake. I spent many of my summers as a child in this town, swimming in that beautiful lake.
Clair and I got to ride around the lake, and then we spent several hours in town sunning ourselves and waiting for our hosts to come home so we could put down our gear and visit.
That was a lot of fun, the family and the children were fascinated by the stories of our trip, and of our backpacking trip.
That night Clair went to bed early, but thinking about my imminent marathon, I went for a 7 mile run. I was fast, my heart felt great, but my legs were tired, and when I got back my legs were more than ready to be done.

Day Nine - Elk Rapids

DSCN0597
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Day Nine was perhaps our best day yet. Despite an early mileage error in our book adding 10 miles to our planned day, we had one of the best morning rides of the trip.

Starting from near Cross Village we rode south along a road calling itself the Green Tunnel, a 20 mile section of winding one lane road that was slightly rolling, completely tree lined, and offered the occasional viewpoint of the lake from above.

After that there was a great bike path from Petoskey on through Charlevoix. In Charlevoix we had lunch at a good deli with two northbound weekend bikers who were heading home/north to Canada after a bicycling festival in Traverse City.

The morning miles were incredible, and the afternoon miles weren't that bad either, but after a long day we finally got into Elk Rapids, our planned stop. Clair walked into the local BP in order to refill her water bottle and get directions to the camp grounds, and was informed by the woman working the counter that we could camp on her mother's lawn over night if all we needed was a place to stay. Since that was all we were looking for we happily agreed, and had a convenient place to stay.

The rest of the day was spent on the Elk Rapids beach where I did some swimming and sunned myself.

Sonic Bombast anyone?

DSCN0591
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Todd and Sam, this one's for you.

Day 8 - Cross Village - Stealth

DSCN0575
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

A pretty day. We had an excellent sunrise, we travelled through St. Ignace and over the Straits of Mackinac, and the famous mackinac bridge.

The bridge is 6 miles long and quite pretty. Bikers are driven over the toll bridge in a bridge authority pickup truck. Unfortunately they hustled us over it so quickly that I only had time to get photos from in the truck and from the far side.

But we had another nice night of stealth camping on State Park property. With beach access. I managed to cook our dinner while we were on the beach, another night of storebought pasta, but a good meal never the less.

Pasty for Breakfast

DSCN0557
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

A U.P. specialty a pasty is a beef pie/thing often covered (as here) in gravy. Which is too bad, cause based upon the limited reading I had done about the U.P. I thought a pasty was a breakfast item, not a big meat item. Oh the woes of vegetarianism.

Sunrise, Day Eight

DSCN0545
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Day 7 - Rainy Day Stealth

DSCN0502
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Well last nights clouds and rain have became this morning's clouds and rain. But somewhere in that morning I remembered a few things.

Like: I really don't like wearing a shirt while being rained on. So there I was riding my bike down the highway shoulder in the rain.

Like: I really don't mind being wet. I actually kind of enjoy it.

Like: The scenery around here is great! And I really like riding my bike!

So I spent my morning having a profoundly good time riding down US shirtless in some solid rain.

Sounds odd? You get used to stuff like that while traveling.

As you can tell from the photo of Clair on th beach near our campsite, the clouds cleared and the night became nice. Sometime after lunch in Manistique (a nice little town) the rain stopped, we dried our stuff, and we found a camping spot on Lake Michigan in Naubinway.

This was probably our best campsite as it offered wadable water, good sunsets and sunrises and easy beach access.

Patrick Ponders. And Check those tan lines!

DSCN0533
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

I suppose it is time to talk about my tan. Despite my attempts to be on the beach for at least an hour every day, or find some other way to moderate my tan lines, I have some pretty serious contrast on my skin.

To begin, my shoulders and arms are pretty dark. This is partly because I started with a base farmers', but also because I forgot sunblock on the first day. I was red as a lobster in two small areas that night.

Then my legs have been darkening, but only from just above the knee down. The bike shorts take care of the
rest, and the backs of my legs get the most sun.

After that: my face is getting darker, and my stomach/chest and back are staying just as pale. No matter what I do, I cannot seem to darken those areas.

If you heard me talking about biking shirtless before the trip, you are right. I had planned that. Unfortunately I never had the time or sunlight to go sit and even myself out enough to spend all day with my shirt off.

Day Six - Rapid River Stealth

DSCN0474
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Today we crossed the border into our third state, we are now in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Hooray! I've never been in the UP before, though Clair has.

Another cloudy start, but today it stayed that way.

Because we are ahead of schedule we made it into our original destination Escanaba pretty early. While we were there we picked up our bounce box (a piece of mail sent to the post office ahead containing supplies) and changed out the items we had in it. We also went into the local mall to get water and pick up some small supply items (water, and a book for me). The mall part was just because it was accross the street from the P.O.

After that we kept going, and eventually camped out on a random parcel of State Forest a little away from the road and a little away from the lake. The only problem with the camp site was that there was no water, and we had none left. There were no nearby gas stations, and only a local hotel or home or two, so we went a little light on the water that night.

Honestly this wasn't our best night together. A little tired, my attempts at humor just sounded strained and tired, I'm afraid that we were getting on each others nerves a little.

Michigan!

DSCN0471
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Day Five - Marinette

DSCN0464
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Our stop in Marinette is way ahead of schedule. Despite planning on being in Oconto tonight, we managed to get a head of schedule yesterday, and blow into Oconto in the early afternoon today.

But before that it was an interesting day. Today started off cloudy and cool, and somewhere in the day I pulled ahead of Clair. I was looking around in the low light of an opaque sky when I noticed two things: 1. A Belgioso cheese plant 2. I had no idea where Clair was.

Handling them in seeming importance, I had planned for losing Clair and we had established that we would have walkie-talkies, and that we would check in every hour on the hour when separated, so I pulled it out and started calling when appropriate.

The Bel Gioso plant is a less important thing. I've just developed a taste for their Mozzarella, which is incredible. But it was a distraction in the day.

We met up in Green Bay, and I found out that Clair had developed a flat. First one of the trip. After that I stayed a little closer to her, though mostly because the going was slow and turny.

We got to Oconto early, as mentioned, and while we were there, we met our first long distance biker: Julia. Julia was from Chicago, but was riding from Milwaukee to Canada. She was more experienced than us, and had suggestions for how to change Clair's bike so it wouldn't hurt her neck.

We eventually made it to Marinette, which is right on the border, and because we had managed to stay far under budget, we ordered pizza to the municipal park we were camping in.

Day Four Maribel

DSCN0444
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

I feel like a short entry now, maybe more written later upon reflection.

We got up, left the park, definitely feeling good. We rode into Manitowoc to buy food. There we used the internet in what I have to say was one of the best public libraries I have been into. The internet let us discover that the campsite we had hoped to stay at was full, so we modified the plan to allow us to shorten our mileage today and tomorrow, and to stay at a campgrounds on our new route.

After that we headed out. It was a hot afternoon, and I was beat when we got into camp. The hill up to it was tough. Finally after one of the slowest sets of mileage we have done, we saw a sign for camping. The camping was not where we expected, but where we
thought it was were some caves (wisconsin type caves) and a haunted hotel. After that we found the camping,
which was nice.

Good storm tonight, lots of lightning, hopefully the weather will clear up tomorrow.

Day Three - Kohler Andrae

DSCN0436
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

A very good day, and making us feel confident again.

We got out of Milwaukee at a decent time, leaving the Kamholz's house when Kate needed to head to work.

This was our first real day of any kind of farm mileage. Before what we had been riding past was suburban industrial areas between Chicago and
Milwaukee. Today was different. Cornfields and small roads everywhere: the day was very good.

We have gotten into more of a habit of drinking as often as we should, and of taking breaks when we need it or feel tired.

We got the very last campsite at Kohler Andrae State Park, so we are right on schedule. There might not be
a campsite tomorrow, so we are considering finding a new route for future days. Be aware of modified
plans.

The site was good, though not close to the water, and desperately in need of shade. Sadly the nearest gas-station had a very limited supply of food items, and I had to make do on a diet of combos, milk, american cheese, and tomato soup. Had worse.

Oh, and just as we were getting in to the park, this truck behind me gives me a little beep. I'm already all the way over, so there is nothing I can do. He passes me (big semi) about 2-3 feet away! The draft off his body was huge, so I am lucky I didn't panic
and get knocked over.

I love these signs

DSCN0430
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

We saw this just north of Milwaukee and I had to stop and get a shot.

Day Two - Kamholz Home

DSCN0421
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Day 2 was humbling. After the eagerness of our first day, Clair and I spent the morning discussing how the mileage was going to be easy and we could get away with more mileage.

Of course, it's never that easy.

About 10 miles outside of Milwaukee we were dogging it. I definitely had not been drinking enough water, particularly with how hot it was, and even I needed food to keep my legs going.

But we got in to Kate and Corey's in Milwaukee. Kate made us vegetable lasagna and bruschetta, both very
nice. Then we sat around there apartment and talked till Clair and I started to fall alseep around 10.

Wisconsin

DSCN0418
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Day One - Illinois Beach State Park

DSCN0399
Originally uploaded by Lucky GA-ME 03.

Our first day started extremely well. Very auspicious. Gorgeous weather. We had breakfast at IHOP, then I used the internet at Starbucks to try to set up some last minute things (including this blog), we loaded our packed bags onto our bikes and got going.

The weather was beautiful, and we got some photos of us at the start, so that was good. We got going along Sheridan which will be our main route for a while, and kept going. There was some confusion about what exactly was our route, but since we were just heading north toward Zion anyway, I just kept turning that way.

After a while we were riding parallel to the train tracks for the north-shore line and it felt like we were going through the same small suburb again and again. We did go by Ravinia, and I had not realized it was so close.

The mileage felt very easy. For lunch and dinner we stopped in at a Piggly Wiggly near the camp and bought mac and cheese and peanut butter and jelly. We are thinking that we will at the pbj over several days as lunch. We also got some breakfast fruits bananas + nectarines).

The campsite is gorgeous, our site has a view of the lake. I managed a 30 minute swim down the length of the park, and then I fell asleep tanning myself on the beach.

Definitely a good first day.

Dog Days

These are the dog days of summer. Out on the road,
the sepia quality of the sunlight filtered through
construction dust and stratus clouds only serves to
emphasize the dry heat of the breeze. The air has
been leached of all moisture, and your body is coated
with a thin layer of salt.

Pedaling down some dusty local highway in this weather
is not the worst thing I have ever done, but neither
is it anywhere near the best I have done on this trip.

There is something about the afternoon in august. The
perfect time to rest, to take a siesta. Yet somehow
we always end up on the least pleasant roads at that
time of day. The mornings are all cool damp back
roads and lake views. The afternoons are filled with
the dry heat and urbanized areas that are becoming
more frequent as we near chicago.

Clair and I have made it to Muskegon, Mi, and I am
using the internet to wrap up some school affairs (the
semester is appallingly close). We are both feeling
good and looking forward to our return. The days
ahead look less dificult now, though we are both
getting tired.

I'd write more, but I'm not sure anyone is reading,
and I'll just end up editing it when I get home
anyway.

Patrick

Manitowoc

Hello Everyone, Sorry I haven't gotten to write as
much as I had hoped, but there hasn't quite been the
internet access I had been hoping for. Anyway here is
a quick update:

We are exactly on schedule, though we are debating the
merits of staying so tonight. We could go farther
than planned, go away from the lake and get a lead on
tomorrows big 80 mile day.

Illinois State Beach our first night was good. I
didn't realize how close it was, even by train or
bike.

It was nice to see Kate and Corey in Milwaukee, that
was a very tough day, let myself get a bit dehydrated.

Yesterday was the first day were it was almost all
fields and farms, very pleasant.

Today has also been fields and farms, but with more
views of the lake.

Here goes my internet,
Later
Patrick

Trip Journals - Intro

Hey everybody.
It's the last day before the trip, and Clair and I are
almost completely ready. We packed this morning, just
to see how much space we had, got our things together,
and did a very short ride in the Wrigley-ville area.

We will be using this blog to post journal entries.
Hopefully I will have email access from the road once
or twice, so I can make posts. I've set up the account
to allow me to email posts in, so it should be
possible.

Expect to see just words up here till we get back on
the 21st. I don't anticipate being able to put up any
pictures till we get back in town. We do have a
digital camera, so we should have lots of photos when
we get back.

Remember to check the trip page over in Athletics, and
we'll try to update here and there as much as
possible.

See you soon,
Patrick